1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a multi-piece golf club head having a separately cast metal hosel.
2. Description of the Related Art
Golf club manufacturers have traditionally used expensive tooling or machining to form hosels in metal, wood-type golf clubs in an effort to make their designs more affordable and producible on a mass scale. This is particularly true for manufacturing multi-piece drivers, which typically include separately formed crowns, soles, and face components. The hosel element of the driver is complex because it needs to connect to all of these pieces, but machining or forming the hosel limits the overall geometry and complexity of the resulting club head.
These manufacturing limitations can lead to issues with material availability and strength. In particular, the materials that permit machining or tooling usually are not strong enough to accommodate current adjustable hosel designs. In fact, testing of multi-piece driver designs having machined or tooled adjustable hosels has revealed cracking and failure in various features of the adjustable hosels, even if the material used is easily forged and permits good tool life. The use of stronger material to machine or tool adjustable hosels is also not ideal, as it causes too much wear on the tool and takes too long to machine for production purposes. As such, there is a need for strong, durable adjustable hosel constructions that can be produced efficiently and used with multi-piece golf club heads.